Week Three
Checking in again with my running tally of what I’m getting up to on this very extended parental leave and I think it’s a relatively quiet one. Let me see what actually happened in the last week…
Extreme Weight Loss
It’s not how I planned things to go, but I had a really bad diverticulitis flare-up and I’ve spent the last week basically managing that. That’s been a liquid only diet (5 tins of soup in 2 days), and has meant a lot of yoghurt, lucozade and hunger.
One day I think I had about 600 calories total, and unsurprisingly, the weight loss is going great! The gym attendance, however…
I think being old is a bit like this - just the gradual accumulation of illnesses until one of them eventually kills you. Well, I have diverticular disease and while it’s usually fine (but means I can only have one or two coffees a day), a flare-up pretty much knocks me out for at least a few days and can get pretty serious pretty fast.
I think I just managed to control this one with diet, but only because I’m
stupid stubborn. Maybe next time I won’t be so lucky.
Baby Group
I attended my first baby group with the 7-month-old and it was pretty fun. Out of the 22 adults (responsible for 20 babies) I was the only man, and my baby needed changing before the class started. I was hoping we’d get some decent conversation but it’s all incredibly surface-level. I wish we could normalise starting at the deep end with a classic “what is your most controversial political belief?” rather than “who is this and how old are they?”
The group was at a local private school that hosts free sessions in the hope that you’ll see the facilities and want to send your child to the school. In fairness, the facilities are ludicrous and it’s possible we’ll send him to the nursery there. It’s bound to be a sensible ROI, because the school runs from 2-18 years and the fees are something like £8k/term. You only need one parent to sign their child up for the whole of school who wouldn’t have, and you can pay for as many baby groups as you like.
Mentoring
I did a bit of data science mentoring too. It’s something I quite like doing - it’s fun to hear about problems in other domains and to try to add value. I feel vaguely like I did when I was on the board of an initiative a while ago. You hear a brief snippet of a problem and have to try to offer value. Board meetings were more frustrating because there’s never enough time to dive deep on an issue, whereas you can direct a mentoring session more effectively. Maybe if you’re a good board member, you can do that too. Something for me to noodle on.
School Runs
I don’t keep track of how many school runs I do, but it’s quite a few. I love them. Walking through the village, watching the children zoom around on their bikes, and seeing the hubbub as more and more children and their parents turn up. It’s great that the kids love their school, and it’s great we can walk/cycle there.
There are so many places we could live in the world, but so many of them would have us give up this…those 40 minutes of the day (20 there, 20 back) really sell the whole village idyll and give us something unique about rural British living. Well, maybe not unique (I’m sure we could achieve the same in a bunch of countries)…but unique compared to London/New York/San Francisco which are the realistic career-based competitors.
Conclusion
I’m still achieving things and am happy with how parental leave is going, but this was a quiet week. Being ill sucks. I’ve not been to the gym. But I’m settling into the leave now - it feels natural. I’m not mentally at my job at all, and I’m now fully present in the home. Bring on week 4, with a court visit and a trip to Leeds!